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Leonard Nimoy

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I gotta go with Ron on this. There's nothing wrong with the high idealism of the trek universe. I'd hazard a guess that's what we all love about it.

But what good is the idealism of the characters if it is never put to the test? I don't mean conflicts resolved in 45 minutes either, but real problems and conflicts that really test the strength of those character's moral codes and convictions.

It doesn't mean much of anything if it's never well and truly tested. That's what the writers were trying to give us, and we all see what happened when they were able to deliver, versus when they weren't.

Thanks the gods Ronald Moore felt so constrained on Star Trek. It was all that constraint (generated by "perfect Starfleet people") that caused him to explode and create "Battlestar Galactica."

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry!

I owe you another one.

Ron Moore didn't creat Battlestar Galactica nor was the original series of that show filled with supposedly perfect people either for that matter.

__________________
The greatest science fiction series of all time is
Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one
or all in a bunch to back it up!"
--- Harlan Ellison, from his introduction
to the PINNACLE series of Doctor Who books

Thanks the gods Ronald Moore felt so constrained on Star Trek. It was all that constraint (generated by "perfect Starfleet people") that caused him to explode and create "Battlestar Galactica."

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry!

I owe you another one.

Ron Moore didn't creat Battlestar Galactica...

He created the good one, yes.

__________________"If I didn't keep getting distracted by an avatar showing a sombrero'd dog getting his engineering hull penis substitute cut off I'd probably say that the above post was a point well made." - ITL

__________________"If I didn't keep getting distracted by an avatar showing a sombrero'd dog getting his engineering hull penis substitute cut off I'd probably say that the above post was a point well made." - ITL

The problem with TNG was never that it was too optimistic. The problem was that it was dishonest about human nature. You can't do stories that are both optimistic and honest about human nature -- just watch the first four seasons of The West Wing or any season of the current Doctor Who. They do real, optimistic, hopeful stories without having people that are never petty or never jealous or never greedy or never selfish.

People aren't like that. People aren't perfectable, and they never will be. Because perfection does not exist -- it is a meaningless concept. It's like they said in the Joss Whedon film Serenity: "I'm gonna show you a world without sin." Well, a world without sin is a dead world, because the things that are the sources of humanity's so-called "imperfections" are also the sources of humanity's best elements. That's why Whedon said in his commentary that the essential argument in Serenity is that the concept of sin itself is outmoded.

Trek used to have that same attitude, frankly. Heck, for all its flaws, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier reflects that attitude well when Captain Kirk insists that his pain is a part of him, as important as any other part, and that the loss of his own pain would be a loss of his own identity. We see imperfect people all the time in TOS. It's like Kirk said: "We may be killers, but we're not gonna kill today."

There's nothing optimistic about declaring that people are perfectable. The key is to declare that people are improvable.

I love how people still lambaste RDM for "re-creating" or "changing" BSG. If he had tried to pitch the "same-old, same-old" approach, it would have been shot down by TPTB at Universal like they did to all of the other attempts to revive BSG (DeSanto, Singer, Hatch). They were obviously looking for something different, and that's what RDM delivered. You can't blame him for showing the bigwigs something different that they liked.

__________________
I hate having thoughts on the top of my head. They usually jump off and commit suicide.

Location: number6 has left the village through some inexpicable hole in the ground to head the corporation.

Re: Moore On Escaping 'The Box'

Turtletrekker wrote:

I love how people still lambaste RDM for "re-creating" or "changing" BSG. If he had tried to pitch the "same-old, same-old" approach, it would have been shot down by TPTB at Universal like they did to all of the other attempts to revive BSG (DeSanto, Singer, Hatch). They were obviously looking for something different, and that's what RDM delivered. You can't blame him for showing the bigwigs something different that they liked.

On this I completely agree.

I wonder how smug RDM would have been about Trek if nuBSG hadn't been successful.

I love how people still lambaste RDM for "re-creating" or "changing" BSG. If he had tried to pitch the "same-old, same-old" approach, it would have been shot down by TPTB at Universal like they did to all of the other attempts to revive BSG (DeSanto, Singer, Hatch). They were obviously looking for something different, and that's what RDM delivered. You can't blame him for showing the bigwigs something different that they liked.

They didn't shoot down the Singer version he left to make the first X-Men movie.

__________________
The greatest science fiction series of all time is
Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one
or all in a bunch to back it up!"
--- Harlan Ellison, from his introduction
to the PINNACLE series of Doctor Who books

The problem with TNG was never that it was too optimistic. The problem was that it was dishonest about human nature. You can't do stories that are both optimistic and honest about human nature -- just watch the first four seasons of The West Wing or any season of the current Doctor Who. They do real, optimistic, hopeful stories without having people that are never petty or never jealous or never greedy or never selfish.

People aren't like that. People aren't perfectable, and they never will be. Because perfection does not exist -- it is a meaningless concept. It's like they said in the Joss Whedon film Serenity: "I'm gonna show you a world without sin." Well, a world without sin is a dead world, because the things that are the sources of humanity's so-called "imperfections" are also the sources of humanity's best elements. That's why Whedon said in his commentary that the essential argument in Serenity is that the concept of sin itself is outmoded.

Trek used to have that same attitude, frankly. Heck, for all its flaws, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier reflects that attitude well when Captain Kirk insists that his pain is a part of him, as important as any other part, and that the loss of his own pain would be a loss of his own identity. We see imperfect people all the time in TOS. It's like Kirk said: "We may be killers, but we're not gonna kill today."

There's nothing optimistic about declaring that people are perfectable. The key is to declare that people are improvable.

Ack. This bit here -- "You can't do stories that are both optimistic and honest about human nature -- just watch the first four seasons of The West Wing or any season of the current Doctor Who." -- ought to be "You CAN do stories..."

^^^
But, like it or not - it's the reason the overall Star Trek TOS is still remembered as fondly as it is. If 'McCoy and 'Mr. Spock' had started in GR's 24th century, we would never have gotten all that in-fighting dynamic which was a BIG aspect of what made these characters so memorable; nor the conflict that often occured between 'McCoy' and 'Captain Kirk' - which was what lead Kirk to come up with a way to get out of the main situation in TOS first filmed TV episode (post the two pilots) - The Corbomite Manuever. Rarely has a show managed to get all the elements of a series to gel so well in it's first production episode as that one did for Star Trek.

But TNG remains (imo) a pale imitation of what Star Trek wasa really about; and I think (unfortunately) it's because of all the things GR went through (and in some was put himself through after the original series ended); so that's pronbably one main reason TNG is so different in tone to TOS. GR wanted something he could definitly say was his; and TNG was the result.

I think it's sad that the writers are so unimaginative that they can't write a good story without "petty jealousies and greed and all that...bickering". It is they, themselves, who are in a box, not Roddenberry. They have a whole universe of ideas at their disposal except what's in the "Roddenberry Box". Just because people have learned to get along by the 24th century, doesn't mean there can't be conflict. It's just that Roddenberry predicted that by the 24th century, (maybe not the 23rd), people would no longer physically/psychologically abuse/neglect their kids and most people would grow up well adjusted and with high self-esteem. The "poisonous pedagogy", as psychologists call it, would be cured and eradicated, like polio or smallpox. People will have learned to get along. They will have eschewed the pettiness.

Now, starting with that premise, you mean to tell me that a good writer can't develop a good and interesting story? Give me a break! The problem, as I see it, is that the writers are stuck in the 20th/21st century and can't think outside their little pathological box.

And if writers like Ira Stephen Behr don't like the Roddenberry universe, they really should be writing for another show. Perhaps by the 24th century, people won't have this overweening need to be "different" and dye their hair blue to prove it.
They will recognize and be taught as children that we are all unique and will accept themselves as they are without having to hurt other people in order to feel good about themselves.

Of course, the audience still lives in the 20th/21st century. Oh, well.

Quiet! You're not supposed to mention this!

People from the future *not* acting like what we are now? What is this? Science fiction?

And despite popular opinion, TNG had plenty of conflict--when it was NECESSARY

I think it's sad that the writers are so unimaginative that they can't write a good story without "petty jealousies and greed and all that...bickering". It is they, themselves, who are in a box, not Roddenberry. They have a whole universe of ideas at their disposal except what's in the "Roddenberry Box". Just because people have learned to get along by the 24th century, doesn't mean there can't be conflict. It's just that Roddenberry predicted that by the 24th century, (maybe not the 23rd), people would no longer physically/psychologically abuse/neglect their kids and most people would grow up well adjusted and with high self-esteem. The "poisonous pedagogy", as psychologists call it, would be cured and eradicated, like polio or smallpox. People will have learned to get along. They will have eschewed the pettiness.

Now, starting with that premise, you mean to tell me that a good writer can't develop a good and interesting story? Give me a break! The problem, as I see it, is that the writers are stuck in the 20th/21st century and can't think outside their little pathological box.

And if writers like Ira Stephen Behr don't like the Roddenberry universe, they really should be writing for another show. Perhaps by the 24th century, people won't have this overweening need to be "different" and dye their hair blue to prove it.
They will recognize and be taught as children that we are all unique and will accept themselves as they are without having to hurt other people in order to feel good about themselves.

Of course, the audience still lives in the 20th/21st century. Oh, well.

Quiet! You're not supposed to mention this!

People from the future *not* acting like what we are now? What is this? Science fiction?

And despite popular opinion, TNG had plenty of conflict--when it was NECESSARY and RELEVANT. (See: TNG's "The Quality of Life" vs any crappy DS9 Odo/Quark moment).

Ronald D. Moore, Ira Steven Behr, intelligent as they are, have never and will never figure out TNG's appeal to its fans.

"Do you think that maybe there's a niche market out there for people who crave stories that are 1) INTELLIGENTLY TOLD and 2) OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE? Naaaaah!"

Who gives a fuck? "The Cage" was largely lifted from "Forbidden Planet."

Most all of Moore's observations are spot on. His critiques of modern Trek are inescapable for anyone who's not in the tank for the Franchise, most notably in his understanding of what made the original series different and gave it an appeal to those of us who encountered it in our youths that the follow-on shows and movies can't touch:

There was really a sense of them being out there on their own, with no one to turn to for help. There was a great sense of the frontier and the unknown and not knowing what is around the corner and only having themselves to fall back on. I think we kind of got away from that with the subsequent series. We started dealing with the Federation a lot. There were other starships involved a lot. Starfleet Command was never that far away.